Throughout the summer, the Afrophon’ Reading Room presents a number of contemporary publications as well as rare editions by African publishers that reveal how publishing offers an alternative space for curatorial, editorial, and artistic practice within the African contexts.

The project presents the work of artists’ collectives, independent spaces, and individual producers who question with their output the definition of publishing as interdisciplinary tool that includes fields such as literature, art writing, contemporary art, critical theory and design among other, while expressing the plurality of contexts and voices that are pivotal in the explorations of contemporary African experience itself. The reading room presents a selection of key publications mapping out a wide field of groundbreaking African cultural periodicals from the twentieth century that were published at the height of tricontinental solidarity, nation-building and post-colonial history, including Black Orpheus, Odu, and Peuples Africains. The legacy and significance of these publications is essential in advancing current analytical and interrogative discourses and for better understanding the globalized and central nature of African and Black diasporic cultures today.

Participants

AFRIKADAA / African Art Book Fair
Assembly Point
Dream Press
Kayfa ta
Kulte Editions
Locale
Motifs
N.M.E PRESS
PRŌTOCOLLUM
pumflet: art, architecture and stuff
Radiobougou / Afrotropiques podcast
ZAMÂN BOOKS & CURATING

luma.org